Five hundred years ago, you could pick up red rocks, smelt them, and oh look, Iron. Not now a days.
Whereas now, all we have to do is go down to the local scrap heap, or if push comes to shove, dig up some landfills. Those resources haven't gone away, they've just been redeposited. Copper was the first metal to be mined, since it was available in surface rocks; now, there's no more surface deposits, but there sure are a lot of old pennies lying around! (and I for one wouldn't shed a tear at having to melt them all down and do away with them.)
The only resource that would really be an issue is energy, and we've got plenty of that as long as you don't mind wrecking the environment (even more). The rest of the problem lies in making useful things from the resources we have. That is where our dependence on manufacturing technologies comes into play.
For CPE vs. CS, I doubt it would be much of a problem to switch majors once you've started. I suspect CPE-to-CS might be slightly easier than the reverse, but this is highly dependent on the individual school/program.
Personally, I would try CPE if you're torn between software and hardware; if you know you want to do software, going straight into CS might be a good choice. Also, companies making PC apps or web-apps are more likely to hire CS; those making embedded, networking, or other hardware-intensive products (eg. peripherals with driver software) may favor CPEs, even for purely software positions.
Obviously, this will depend on the school; the levels of supply and demand for each major will depend on the reputation of both the school and the department in question.
Actually, it's not uncommon for new engineering majors to be the *hardest* to get into. Often when a hot new field of study opens up, the initial student demand exceeds the supply of qualified instructors and/or other resources. The response I've seen from some schools is to make the new major a de-facto "honors" major; ie. only those with high GPAs the first few semesters are allowed in.
Of course, if the school has had CPE for a while, or if they are really accepting people into the program from day one, then your strategy may work. Be aware, however, that not all schools make it so easy to transfer from one program to another, especially between technical and non-technical major. By the time you've figured out that you want to switch majors, too many of your credit hours may be in non-transferrable courses.
Rumors are that it'll take place during the early days of the Federation.
Isn't this what became Andromeda? A year ago, when they were supposedly considering two options for Trek shows, one of them was rumored to be a "birth of the Federation" type show. My understanding was that Andromeda came out of those discussions (with the plot from show A, but the name from show B). They decided not to make it a Trek show for some reason, and instead called it "Gene Roddenberry's..."
If you look at the story line, the Trek concept is clearly still there. Instead of building the Federation, they're re-building the Commonwealth, but it's all the same thing really.
We know that the average person reaches (physiological) intellectual maturity at around 16 years of age. But one fairly recent study suggested that judgement and/or emotional maturity doesn't fully develop (reach its final form) until maybe age 22.
If this is true, then it's possible that the "experience" people talk about is only part of the reason why older individuals are (or are perceived to be) generally wiser than younger individuals. There might be a biological change going on which affects people's ability to make optimal decisions under certain circumstances.
Obviously, this still wouldn't totally override the effects of environment, but it's something to think about.
Ok, minor nitpick here: you seem to have a bit of circular logic in here. You seem to be saying that more experienced people should get the respect(~= credit) in part because they are willing to let more experienced people take the credit. That in no way proves that more experienced people *deserve* the credit or respect. Or maybe it's a Zen thing; in order to get the respect you deserve, you must accept that you can't get the respect you deserve?
Also, you mention having the trust of your boss, which again is exactly what we're discussing here.
That said, I must admit I agree with many of your points; however, I don't believe that it's actually impossible for a young person to have these qualities. Certainly I lacked them at 18 (or even 22), but that doesn't prove anything about others (which is the main agrument against discrimination in general).
Yeah, what I noticed was that Saturday night on ESPN, they did a segment reporting on the first game(s) of the XFL, but they didn't even bother to tell the scores. They still don't seem to take it seriously.
1. Engineering's worth is self-evident.
ie. "Engineering's worth is obvious."
The worth of art and music is pretty darn evident to me.
2. Classics are what the great civilizations were founded on. . .
ie. "Might makes right, so study the mighty."
Remember, most of the time it is the sophisticated peaceful civilization that gets wiped out by the barbarians. It's only after the barbarians steal the best parts of the earlier culture that "great" empires are born.
3. Physics is overrated. All the great minds are like my fellow engineers at IBM....
ie. "Theory sucks; Physicists are pansies."
Actually, in my experience the best engineers are (present or former) physicists. Perhaps engineering is overrated (or at least the training).
4. Art is vulnerable to misuse by tyrrants in propaganda.
ie. "Art can be used for evil."
So can smart bombs.
5. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are wonderful unattainable quanitities. . .
ie. "Hope is bad."
I'm a major pessimist, and even I wouldn't say this. Someone must have crushed your spirit pretty early. I feel sorry for you.
Yes, but if their proprietary extensions are never open-sourced, then it does you little good. After the three years had passed, the binaries that they distributed would be up for grabs, but the source would still be secret. You can't force them to publish the source; you can only use what they've previously published (once it's fair game).
Also, any new changes they made would be off limits, so you would be limited to three-year-old versions of software, which is rarely satisfactory.
Of course, after the copyright expiration you would be free to reverse engineer it, using whatever portion of the source that was available. Also, any "leaks" of the source would be ok to use, but only if the leak was three years old! (or if you could prove that the leaked info was written three years ago, which would be difficult.)
1) If I voted for the "wrong" person in the last election, it was because I there was no "right" person to vote for. Even if I find a better candidate to vote for, the specifics of the U.S. electoral system pretty much guarantee that one of the major party candidates will be elected. Since a vote for a minor party will have basically no chance of being reflected in the overall representation in Congress or elsewhere, my only way of influencing politics at all is to vote for the "lesser of two evils" from the major parties.
How am I repsonsible for (hypothetically) destruction of the forests, when the only two real choices are between the guy who wants to chop it all down now, and the one who to chop it all down over four or five years?
2) Not all stock is voting stock. You may have a financial stake in a company (often indirectly) and still have no say in how that company is run.
Of course if you're not happy, you can get rid of the stock. But if you own stock in a company through a mutual fund, you usually can't divest from that company without dumping the fund. There are certainly a number of good "clean conscience" type funds out there, but good luck getting them added to your 401(k) plan.
Ownership does *not* equal control, or even approval of a company's policies.
What's even more fun is when the Big Corp burns too much cash and goes bankrupt, leaving communities with *no* outlet for a particular type of item.
This happened with craft stores in my old home town; originally there were several little ones, which did ok. Once the big mega-store moved in (I believe it was a regional chain), all the others died out. Then the big store goes bankrupt, and now there's no decent craft stores left (and this is in a college town, where there should easily be sufficient demand for them).
I also remember something about a cheap French nock-off, which might be what the original poster was referring to. Iomega claimed that they were suing mostly because the nock-offs were poor quality, and thus were hurting the Zip's reputation. I can't recall the details, though (although I'm pretty sure it wasn't Epson).
UnilateralPress
Cape Canaveral, United Republic of Retired Persons
Septmon 42, 10999
In an effort to combat the deadly accrual of space debris, the World Space Agency began using X-ray lasers to disintegrate derelict objects in Sol3 orbit. Some of the larger debris targeted included ancient satellite parts. "There are lots of old satellite hulls out there, most of which were used purposes we can't even guess at," said WSA spokesdrone Xy-103FA8. "For instance, one of the first objects we destroyed was an ancient space pod with no listed use whatsoever; apparently they sent it up just so it could sit there for 50000 years. .."
As noted above, this system is really most suited to the handeld PDA market, where the screen is too small to use multiple fingers (or even one finger, really). Most people use a pen ("stylus") with these devices, and it's hard to use more than one pen at a time (with one hand at least), so this solution is pretty good.
For PDAs, a chording keyboard would have to be some sort of hardware add-on, separate from the touchscreen. This is not always desirable for a portable device.
On larger devices a multiple-finger chording interface could be more useful. Four or five keys are easier to fit onto an embedded device's interface than a whole QWERTY keyboard. If the device had a touchscreen that could handle multiple touches at once (?), such an input system could be added with no extra hardware. The trick, as always, would be to get people to use it.
It sounds like this is just a preliminary experiment, kind of a proof of concept thing. I'm sure the final resolution will be higher, but for now it doesn't make sense to plaster lots of chips on someone's retina if you're not sure that they'll even be able to tolerate (not reject) them. Best to start off with one low density chip (that's cheap and easy to implant) until you're sure it's going to work.
BTW I agree that this type of implant is clearly *not* intended for correcting simple vision problems, which are the result of lens/focus abnormalities. Perhaps some people are confusing this with the "adaptive optics" story a while back.
You've got a good point. The natives may be primitive, but they're not stupid; they can tell that the source of the power is in the objects, not the person. But all that this really means is that our current everyday technology is not sufficiently advanced for "god-hood," though it might be enough for the designation "magic".
Imagine instead an alien (or a human cleverly disguised to look godlike/weird), who has the ability to make anti-gravity devices and other such machines, which are all small enough to be hidden and/or can be controlled remotely. This being could then fly around, move things, and possibly even kill people, all without any visible aid. That would probably be enough to convince the natives that said being was a "god." (Combine with nanotech for even more psuedo-omnipotent fun:)
"...I should have the right to determine what kinds of traffic I will deliver to my users..."
Isn't that called Facism?
Umm, no, that's called ownership. If it's his company, and his T1 transmission equipment, he has the right to set usage terms, including terms covering the types of data services that will be delivered to the customer. As long as the customer has an alternative (another provider), there's no fascism involved. BTW, this is why monopolies are considered a bad thing (even when their products don't crash five times a day:)
In practice, of course, no ISP that restricted access in this way would last very long, unless they were doing it "for the children." I can see this sort of thing fitting in nicely with other schemes to restrict "harmful" or inappropriate content for kids ("If we can't weed out that 'sinful' music, we'll block out all music downloads!"). So eventually people may be asking for this kind of service.
Apathetic voters are certainly a big part of the problem, but sometimes it's simply impossible, under the two-party system, to vote for anyone who reflects your views (or is even competent to do the job). If neither candidate agrees with my positions on important topics, how am I supposed to influence the poltical process?
In many cases, a House seat goes completely uncontested; in other cases, one of the candidates turns out to be such a crackpot that nobody in their right minds would vote for him/her. Even (especially?) in Presidential elections, voting is often a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils, because neither candidate is really acceptable.
In theory, I could run for office myself, in order to offer voters another viewpoint; in practice, it's virtually impossible to win a major election without connections and massive financial backing. In most cases, I couldn't even get on the ballot. So I can't just do it myself. (This would still be true even if the voters cared; the system is rigged against individuals and small parties, and communicating your views effectively to large numbers of people still costs money, even if they're paying attention.)
Of course, multi-party (parlimentary) systems have their own problems; I'm not saying that they are the final answer. In fact, I doubt there is a final answer. But right about now, I'm getting pretty frustrated with my (non-)choices in the upcoming election. Just once, I'd like to really vote for someone I feel good about, rather than simply voting against the one I dislike the most.
Don't forget about the other Gallo brother. After Ernest & Julio cut him out of the family wine business, he tried to start his own company selling cheese. The courts ultimately ruled that he was not allowed to put his own name on his labels. Granted, wine and cheese sort of go together, so there was some potential for confusion; still, it's something to think about.
I'm amazed that nobody (AFAICT) has mentioned the Indrema in all of this. How does this affect the chances of a Myth II (or III...) port to that (linux based) platform? Since Bungie was relatively friendly to the Linux platform, this aquisition move on the part of Micro$oft smells rotten to me. The X-box is a direct competitor to the Indrema, and I'm sure that the existing Linux based titles, including Myth, are on the top of the list for early Indrema ports(?).
I know Take2 supposedly has rights to the existing games, but does that include new ports? The software might have to be seriously reworked to fit into the Indrema platform.
[IANAL] Assuming that were true, web hosts would still be in trouble, because if even one user accesses their web page using Lynx or another keyboard oriented client, the patent would apply.
It's time to start the Ban Lynx Campaign!:-)
(Actually, it would be hard to slide by on this anyway, since disabled access is increasingly important, and often requires keyboard navigation options.)
Star Wars did not have an unknown alien race who wanted to/did blow up Earth. Bad Katz. No Cookie.
No, but it did have an evil empire who wanted to/did blow up Aldaraan, a large Earth-like homeworld. In both movies, the soldiers were faceless drones. In both, the evil fighters were tied (no pun) to a planet smashing mother ship, while the good guys could enter hyperspace at will. I could go on, but others have already pointed out many similarities beyond these.
The writing and dialogue in this film was excellent. With all the things too see and hear, it says a lot that the writing stood out so much that I noticed.
The dialogue was okay, but IMHO, it wasn't anything that spectacular. Granted, it's better than 98% of the animated movie dialogue out there (at least in English:) , but it didn't stand out to me (although perhaps that's a cause for praise in itself).
This is an American film. It was not made in Japan. As such, it is a landmark. Could you imagine seeing an American made film like this 10 years ago? 5 years? 1 year?
Um, yeah, actually. . . I think it was called Heavy Metal! Granted this movie is better in some ways, but the concept an (arguably) adult/serious sci-fi animated film isn't totally new to us dumb Americans.
While I did enjoy this movie, I didn't think it lived up to its hype or its potential. They could have made a real epic space opera out of this, but somehow it was missing all of the dramatic tension. The only thing that kept me interested was wondering what the Titan would actually do when (not if) they found and activated it. I guess you could say it's a decent first step in terms of trying to create an anime-equivalent genre in the USA, but it still felt a bit too Disneyish for my taste. Maybe if Titan does ok, the next such movie will be better.
I've had the new Jornada 548 for about a week now. So far it seems pretty cool (I'm still in the 'new toy!' phase). However, I'm discovering the limitations of the system in terms of customization. There are generally fewer options and less flexibility than you would expect in desktop software (even Windows:) .
Also, only the latest versions of M$'s desktop software will sync with it, so if you want to download maps or sync program info, you'll have to toss any old copies and buy the 2000 editions (that is, if you're running Microsoft stuff anyway). But the applications it has are pretty cool. The image viewer is good, and the sound capability puts the nail in Palm's coffin, IMHO.
As for the handwriting recognition, I would say that it's decent, but only if you realize that you're still going to have to learn to write *their* way. At least with the Palm, they don't even pretend to decipher natural writing styles. The PocketPC does recognize the standard roman alphabet, but only if you write them in a certain way, and then _very_ carefully. I've found that I end up using shorthand for some characters, a la Palm's Graffiti (though not necessarily the same). (Note: I've heard that there are add-on handwriting packages out there that work better, but I haven't seen them.)
All in all, it's a good platform for gadget freaks (like me), but probably not as efficient as a Palm or a Psion for use as an electronic organizer. The user interface can be frustrating at times, especially when trying to find a particular system setting, but it's not that bad, and it's more familiar to heavy Windows/computer users than the Palm interface.
BTW,of the three PocketPCs, the Compaq sounds like it may be the best. But since it's not out yet, the HP is a good choice.
Technically, you can't know for sure with a particular problem, but in general it's safe to assume that at least some of the problems that aren't proven unsolvable are nonetheless unsolvable. In practice, of course, there are problems that are (or seem) obviously unsolvable, even though it can't be proven.
Now the next fun question is:
How do you know that you can't prove the problem unsolvable? (A: prove that the unsolvablability problem is unsolvable!)
Slashdot Mirror
Five hundred years ago, you could pick up red rocks, smelt them, and oh look, Iron. Not now a days.
Whereas now, all we have to do is go down to the local scrap heap, or if push comes to shove, dig up some landfills. Those resources haven't gone away, they've just been redeposited. Copper was the first metal to be mined, since it was available in surface rocks; now, there's no more surface deposits, but there sure are a lot of old pennies lying around! (and I for one wouldn't shed a tear at having to melt them all down and do away with them.)
The only resource that would really be an issue is energy, and we've got plenty of that as long as you don't mind wrecking the environment (even more). The rest of the problem lies in making useful things from the resources we have. That is where our dependence on manufacturing technologies comes into play.
For CPE vs. CS, I doubt it would be much of a problem to switch majors once you've started. I suspect CPE-to-CS might be slightly easier than the reverse, but this is highly dependent on the individual school/program.
Personally, I would try CPE if you're torn between software and hardware; if you know you want to do software, going straight into CS might be a good choice. Also, companies making PC apps or web-apps are more likely to hire CS; those making embedded, networking, or other hardware-intensive products (eg. peripherals with driver software) may favor CPEs, even for purely software positions.
Obviously, this will depend on the school; the levels of supply and demand for each major will depend on the reputation of both the school and the department in question.
Actually, it's not uncommon for new engineering majors to be the *hardest* to get into. Often when a hot new field of study opens up, the initial student demand exceeds the supply of qualified instructors and/or other resources. The response I've seen from some schools is to make the new major a de-facto "honors" major; ie. only those with high GPAs the first few semesters are allowed in.
Of course, if the school has had CPE for a while, or if they are really accepting people into the program from day one, then your strategy may work. Be aware, however, that not all schools make it so easy to transfer from one program to another, especially between technical and non-technical major. By the time you've figured out that you want to switch majors, too many of your credit hours may be in non-transferrable courses.
Rumors are that it'll take place during the early days of the Federation.
Isn't this what became Andromeda? A year ago, when they were supposedly considering two options for Trek shows, one of them was rumored to be a "birth of the Federation" type show. My understanding was that Andromeda came out of those discussions (with the plot from show A, but the name from show B). They decided not to make it a Trek show for some reason, and instead called it "Gene Roddenberry's ..."
If you look at the story line, the Trek concept is clearly still there. Instead of building the Federation, they're re-building the Commonwealth, but it's all the same thing really.
One interesting technical point:
We know that the average person reaches (physiological) intellectual maturity at around 16 years of age. But one fairly recent study suggested that judgement and/or emotional maturity doesn't fully develop (reach its final form) until maybe age 22.
If this is true, then it's possible that the "experience" people talk about is only part of the reason why older individuals are (or are perceived to be) generally wiser than younger individuals. There might be a biological change going on which affects people's ability to make optimal decisions under certain circumstances.
Obviously, this still wouldn't totally override the effects of environment, but it's something to think about.
Ok, minor nitpick here: you seem to have a bit of circular logic in here. You seem to be saying that more experienced people should get the respect(~= credit) in part because they are willing to let more experienced people take the credit. That in no way proves that more experienced people *deserve* the credit or respect. Or maybe it's a Zen thing; in order to get the respect you deserve, you must accept that you can't get the respect you deserve?
Also, you mention having the trust of your boss, which again is exactly what we're discussing here.
That said, I must admit I agree with many of your points; however, I don't believe that it's actually impossible for a young person to have these qualities. Certainly I lacked them at 18 (or even 22), but that doesn't prove anything about others (which is the main agrument against discrimination in general).
Uh, nobody said they were EX-strippers (it is Vegas, after all). And every single one of them had a pair of implants to pay for...
BTW, I noticed that the cheerleaders in the other games weren't as consistently attractive or enthusiastic.
Yeah, what I noticed was that Saturday night on ESPN, they did a segment reporting on the first game(s) of the XFL, but they didn't even bother to tell the scores. They still don't seem to take it seriously.
So let's see, basically your arguments are:
1. Engineering's worth is self-evident. ie. "Engineering's worth is obvious."
The worth of art and music is pretty darn evident to me.
2. Classics are what the great civilizations were founded on. . . ie. "Might makes right, so study the mighty."
Remember, most of the time it is the sophisticated peaceful civilization that gets wiped out by the barbarians. It's only after the barbarians steal the best parts of the earlier culture that "great" empires are born.
3. Physics is overrated. All the great minds are like my fellow engineers at IBM. ...
ie. "Theory sucks; Physicists are pansies."
Actually, in my experience the best engineers are (present or former) physicists. Perhaps engineering is overrated (or at least the training).
4. Art is vulnerable to misuse by tyrrants in propaganda. ie. "Art can be used for evil."
So can smart bombs.
5. Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are wonderful unattainable quanitities. . . ie. "Hope is bad."
I'm a major pessimist, and even I wouldn't say this. Someone must have crushed your spirit pretty early. I feel sorry for you.
Yes, but if their proprietary extensions are never open-sourced, then it does you little good. After the three years had passed, the binaries that they distributed would be up for grabs, but the source would still be secret. You can't force them to publish the source; you can only use what they've previously published (once it's fair game).
Also, any new changes they made would be off limits, so you would be limited to three-year-old versions of software, which is rarely satisfactory.
Of course, after the copyright expiration you would be free to reverse engineer it, using whatever portion of the source that was available. Also, any "leaks" of the source would be ok to use, but only if the leak was three years old! (or if you could prove that the leaked info was written three years ago, which would be difficult.)
Two points here:
1) If I voted for the "wrong" person in the last election, it was because I there was no "right" person to vote for. Even if I find a better candidate to vote for, the specifics of the U.S. electoral system pretty much guarantee that one of the major party candidates will be elected. Since a vote for a minor party will have basically no chance of being reflected in the overall representation in Congress or elsewhere, my only way of influencing politics at all is to vote for the "lesser of two evils" from the major parties.
How am I repsonsible for (hypothetically) destruction of the forests, when the only two real choices are between the guy who wants to chop it all down now, and the one who to chop it all down over four or five years?
2) Not all stock is voting stock. You may have a financial stake in a company (often indirectly) and still have no say in how that company is run.
Of course if you're not happy, you can get rid of the stock. But if you own stock in a company through a mutual fund, you usually can't divest from that company without dumping the fund. There are certainly a number of good "clean conscience" type funds out there, but good luck getting them added to your 401(k) plan.
Ownership does *not* equal control, or even approval of a company's policies.
What's even more fun is when the Big Corp burns too much cash and goes bankrupt, leaving communities with *no* outlet for a particular type of item.
This happened with craft stores in my old home town; originally there were several little ones, which did ok. Once the big mega-store moved in (I believe it was a regional chain), all the others died out. Then the big store goes bankrupt, and now there's no decent craft stores left (and this is in a college town, where there should easily be sufficient demand for them).
I also remember something about a cheap French nock-off, which might be what the original poster was referring to. Iomega claimed that they were suing mostly because the nock-offs were poor quality, and thus were hurting the Zip's reputation. I can't recall the details, though (although I'm pretty sure it wasn't Epson).
UnilateralPress
."
Cape Canaveral, United Republic of Retired Persons
Septmon 42, 10999
In an effort to combat the deadly accrual of space debris, the World Space Agency began using X-ray lasers to disintegrate derelict objects in Sol3 orbit. Some of the larger debris targeted included ancient satellite parts. "There are lots of old satellite hulls out there, most of which were used purposes we can't even guess at," said WSA spokesdrone Xy-103FA8. "For instance, one of the first objects we destroyed was an ancient space pod with no listed use whatsoever; apparently they sent it up just so it could sit there for 50000 years. .
As noted above, this system is really most suited to the handeld PDA market, where the screen is too small to use multiple fingers (or even one finger, really). Most people use a pen ("stylus") with these devices, and it's hard to use more than one pen at a time (with one hand at least), so this solution is pretty good.
For PDAs, a chording keyboard would have to be some sort of hardware add-on, separate from the touchscreen. This is not always desirable for a portable device.
On larger devices a multiple-finger chording interface could be more useful. Four or five keys are easier to fit onto an embedded device's interface than a whole QWERTY keyboard. If the device had a touchscreen that could handle multiple touches at once (?), such an input system could be added with no extra hardware. The trick, as always, would be to get people to use it.
It sounds like this is just a preliminary experiment, kind of a proof of concept thing. I'm sure the final resolution will be higher, but for now it doesn't make sense to plaster lots of chips on someone's retina if you're not sure that they'll even be able to tolerate (not reject) them. Best to start off with one low density chip (that's cheap and easy to implant) until you're sure it's going to work.
BTW I agree that this type of implant is clearly *not* intended for correcting simple vision problems, which are the result of lens/focus abnormalities. Perhaps some people are confusing this with the "adaptive optics" story a while back.
You've got a good point. The natives may be primitive, but they're not stupid; they can tell that the source of the power is in the objects, not the person. But all that this really means is that our current everyday technology is not sufficiently advanced for "god-hood," though it might be enough for the designation "magic".
:)
Imagine instead an alien (or a human cleverly disguised to look godlike/weird), who has the ability to make anti-gravity devices and other such machines, which are all small enough to be hidden and/or can be controlled remotely. This being could then fly around, move things, and possibly even kill people, all without any visible aid. That would probably be enough to convince the natives that said being was a "god." (Combine with nanotech for even more psuedo-omnipotent fun
"...I should have the right to determine what kinds of traffic I will deliver to my users..."
Isn't that called Facism?
Umm, no, that's called ownership. If it's his company, and his T1 transmission equipment, he has the right to set usage terms, including terms covering the types of data services that will be delivered to the customer. As long as the customer has an alternative (another provider), there's no fascism involved. BTW, this is why monopolies are considered a bad thing (even when their products don't crash five times a day :)
In practice, of course, no ISP that restricted access in this way would last very long, unless they were doing it "for the children." I can see this sort of thing fitting in nicely with other schemes to restrict "harmful" or inappropriate content for kids ("If we can't weed out that 'sinful' music, we'll block out all music downloads!"). So eventually people may be asking for this kind of service.
Apathetic voters are certainly a big part of the problem, but sometimes it's simply impossible, under the two-party system, to vote for anyone who reflects your views (or is even competent to do the job). If neither candidate agrees with my positions on important topics, how am I supposed to influence the poltical process?
In many cases, a House seat goes completely uncontested; in other cases, one of the candidates turns out to be such a crackpot that nobody in their right minds would vote for him/her. Even (especially?) in Presidential elections, voting is often a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils, because neither candidate is really acceptable.
In theory, I could run for office myself, in order to offer voters another viewpoint; in practice, it's virtually impossible to win a major election without connections and massive financial backing. In most cases, I couldn't even get on the ballot. So I can't just do it myself. (This would still be true even if the voters cared; the system is rigged against individuals and small parties, and communicating your views effectively to large numbers of people still costs money, even if they're paying attention.)
Of course, multi-party (parlimentary) systems have their own problems; I'm not saying that they are the final answer. In fact, I doubt there is a final answer. But right about now, I'm getting pretty frustrated with my (non-)choices in the upcoming election. Just once, I'd like to really vote for someone I feel good about, rather than simply voting against the one I dislike the most.
In a similar vein:
Don't forget about the other Gallo brother. After Ernest & Julio cut him out of the family wine business, he tried to start his own company selling cheese. The courts ultimately ruled that he was not allowed to put his own name on his labels. Granted, wine and cheese sort of go together, so there was some potential for confusion; still, it's something to think about.
I'm amazed that nobody (AFAICT) has mentioned the Indrema in all of this. How does this affect the chances of a Myth II (or III...) port to that (linux based) platform? Since Bungie was relatively friendly to the Linux platform, this aquisition move on the part of Micro$oft smells rotten to me. The X-box is a direct competitor to the Indrema, and I'm sure that the existing Linux based titles, including Myth, are on the top of the list for early Indrema ports(?).
I know Take2 supposedly has rights to the existing games, but does that include new ports? The software might have to be seriously reworked to fit into the Indrema platform.
Anyone have any thoughts? Info?
[IANAL]
:-)
Assuming that were true, web hosts would still be in trouble, because if even one user accesses their web page using Lynx or another keyboard oriented client, the patent would apply.
It's time to start the Ban Lynx Campaign!
(Actually, it would be hard to slide by on this anyway, since disabled access is increasingly important, and often requires keyboard navigation options.)
Star Wars did not have an unknown alien race who wanted to/did blow up Earth. Bad Katz. No Cookie.
No, but it did have an evil empire who wanted to/did blow up Aldaraan, a large Earth-like homeworld. In both movies, the soldiers were faceless drones. In both, the evil fighters were tied (no pun) to a planet smashing mother ship, while the good guys could enter hyperspace at will. I could go on, but others have already pointed out many similarities beyond these.
The writing and dialogue in this film was excellent. With all the things too see and hear, it says a lot that the writing stood out so much that I noticed.
The dialogue was okay, but IMHO, it wasn't anything that spectacular. Granted, it's better than 98% of the animated movie dialogue out there (at least in English :) , but it didn't stand out to me (although perhaps that's a cause for praise in itself).
This is an American film. It was not made in Japan. As such, it is a landmark. Could you imagine seeing an American made film like this 10 years ago? 5 years? 1 year?
Um, yeah, actually. . . I think it was called Heavy Metal! Granted this movie is better in some ways, but the concept an (arguably) adult/serious sci-fi animated film isn't totally new to us dumb Americans.
While I did enjoy this movie, I didn't think it lived up to its hype or its potential. They could have made a real epic space opera out of this, but somehow it was missing all of the dramatic tension. The only thing that kept me interested was wondering what the Titan would actually do when (not if) they found and activated it. I guess you could say it's a decent first step in terms of trying to create an anime-equivalent genre in the USA, but it still felt a bit too Disneyish for my taste. Maybe if Titan does ok, the next such movie will be better.
I've had the new Jornada 548 for about a week now. So far it seems pretty cool (I'm still in the 'new toy!' phase). However, I'm discovering the limitations of the system in terms of customization. There are generally fewer options and less flexibility than you would expect in desktop software (even Windows :) .
Also, only the latest versions of M$'s desktop software will sync with it, so if you want to download maps or sync program info, you'll have to toss any old copies and buy the 2000 editions (that is, if you're running Microsoft stuff anyway). But the applications it has are pretty cool. The image viewer is good, and the sound capability puts the nail in Palm's coffin, IMHO.
As for the handwriting recognition, I would say that it's decent, but only if you realize that you're still going to have to learn to write *their* way. At least with the Palm, they don't even pretend to decipher natural writing styles. The PocketPC does recognize the standard roman alphabet, but only if you write them in a certain way, and then _very_ carefully. I've found that I end up using shorthand for some characters, a la Palm's Graffiti (though not necessarily the same).
(Note: I've heard that there are add-on handwriting packages out there that work better, but I haven't seen them.)
All in all, it's a good platform for gadget freaks (like me), but probably not as efficient as a Palm or a Psion for use as an electronic organizer. The user interface can be frustrating at times, especially when trying to find a particular system setting, but it's not that bad, and it's more familiar to heavy Windows/computer users than the Palm interface.
BTW,of the three PocketPCs, the Compaq sounds like it may be the best. But since it's not out yet, the HP is a good choice.
Technically, you can't know for sure with a particular problem, but in general it's safe to assume that at least some of the problems that aren't proven unsolvable are nonetheless unsolvable. In practice, of course, there are problems that are (or seem) obviously unsolvable, even though it can't be proven.
Now the next fun question is:
How do you know that you can't prove the problem unsolvable? (A: prove that the unsolvablability problem is unsolvable!)